


In the Space of a Moment

by kiss_me_cassie



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Introspection, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-21
Updated: 2006-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9187136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiss_me_cassie/pseuds/kiss_me_cassie
Summary: The years fade away and suddenly you're the same guy you were twelve years ago.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It was a long car ride home from NJ. Long car rides + lots of time = crazy ideas filtering through my head. And lz is threatening to hack my lj to post this for me if I don't, so…
> 
> (Also, I don't know if this is true, but Bex claimed I was the first person in the entire world to write S60 fic because this was based on previews before the show aired and a wealth of knowledge about how Aaron Sorkin tags his characters.)

How did it happen? You've been asking yourself that for the past eight days and you still don't have a good answer. It was a bad weekend, you say. It's the easy answer, the simple one. But it isn't the whole one.

Friday, your best friend tells you he's going in for back surgery. Not a big deal, he says. Except you've seen those medical documentaries. You know things can go wrong with the simplest of procedures. You've seen it first hand with your own uncle. He died when you were ten. 

There are no guarantees that Matt will be ok. 

You're still processing this news when you get the invitation in the mail. Not to the big awards thing next week – you've been expecting that one -- but to Amanda's wedding. You don't love her, not any more, and you're not even sure if you ever really did. But she's getting married and it hits you that you're forty years old and you've never been in anything resembling a serious relationship and you wonder if you ever will be. Shouldn't you have been in love at least once by now? 

Meanwhile, your best friend is going in for surgery. 

The movie's approved, but there's still testing, casting and everything else to be done. It's not Studio 60, it doesn't own your heart and soul like that show did, but it's good. It's very good. And you're doing it with Matt. What could go wrong?

Only everything. Especially if Matt's not there to share it all with you.

The urge to call your sponsor is strong, the urge to call up your guy and buy some coke even stronger. You don't do either. You convince yourself you can get through this. You've been clean for years. You won't fuck it up. Not this time.

You go to the bar down the street to have a drink and shake it off, but one drink turns into two, turns into five. And when the woman at the bar – girl really, she couldn't have been more than twenty-five – shows some interest, you invite her back to your place. You're smart enough to turn her down when she offers you the blow the first time. You just want to drink some more scotch and then take her upstairs and fuck her. And she's just as eager to get to the main event as you. So you pour the drinks, knock them back quickly and then stumble upstairs, shedding clothes as you go. It's the best fuck you've had in a while.

But afterwards, you look at her lying there, dead asleep in your bed, and you wonder what the hell you were thinking. You don't know anything about this girl. For all you know, she just wants a part in the movie. The movie. Which still needs so much work. Work that can only be done if Matt's there with you. And the more you think about the girl in your bed and the movie and Matt, the more agitated you get. You can't do this. You'll fuck everything up.

That's when you remember the coke. It's downstairs in the girl's purse. One floor down, so close, so tempting. Getting up, you pad naked down the hall and down the stairs, finding the purse on the living room floor. You rummage around inside it until you find what you're looking for. The years fade away and suddenly you're the same guy you were twelve years ago, expertly setting up a line of coke on the living room table and taking a hit from it.

Only you aren't that guy from twelve years ago, not really, and you immediately regret your actions. You push everything off the table and rest your head in your hands, sobbing.

And you wonder how the hell you're going to tell Matt and you wonder how the hell you could jeopardize the movie like this. And then you do what you should have done hours ago – you pick up the phone and you call your sponsor and he talks you down. Eleven years reduced to one hour, but one hour is better than none and you know it, so you take a deep breath and you try and figure it out.

And then it's tomorrow, and the girl is gone and the coke is gone with her. You still don't know how to tell Matt, but it doesn't matter anyhow because you barely get a chance to see him before you're being called in for the insurance tests and he's being admitted to the hospital and everything becomes a blur. And you're nervous as hell – and scared too – but you're on the phone with your sponsor every hour and you're going to get through this. You have to. Because the alternative is unthinkable.

And then all hell breaks loose and now you're sitting in a taxi at the back of the set and Matt is looking at you with such concern and you know that you've fucked up the movie, but you've gotten a second chance with this show. And maybe that's all you need right now.

Eleven years. Eight days. It doesn't matter. Because you're only forty and there's still time to meet the woman of your dreams, you've got a new project, one that's means more to you than any movie possibly could, and your best friend is right here, standing by your side. And you know you can do this.


End file.
